"It's a huge honour just to be mentioned in the same sentence as the greats of Tour de France history,” Froome said.

"I've also got a newfound appreciation as to just how difficult it was for those guys to have won five Tours de France. It's definitely not getting any easier each year and this year has certainly been the closest race of my Tour de France career.”

By Sunday night, Froome will have worn the yellow jersey in this year's edition for 15 of a possible 21 days, but for the first time in his Tour de France reign he failed to win a stage.

"Given the course we had this year, it was always the tactic to ride a three-week race and to not go out there on one day trying to blow the race apart and smash it for a stage win,” Froome said.

"It was always going to be about chipping away on every stage and making sure there weren't any massive losses on any days.

"Yes, I did suffer in the Pyrenees (Stage 12) and I did lose 20-25 seconds (22) on that stage ... but I'm extremely grateful it wasn't any worse than that. Normally when you have a had day in the mountains you can lose minutes.”

Froome took a 23-second lead over Bardet and a 29-second advantage over Uran into Saturday's time trial, with the Stade Velodrome providing an electric atmosphere for the start and finish points on a hot afternoon.

Froome finished third on the day, six seconds behind stage winner Maciej Bodnar, but he quickly extinguished any hope Bardet and Uran had of snatching the yellow jersey.

The Brit started well and would finish 26 seconds faster than Uran and a whopping 1min57sec ahead of Bardet, whose nightmare took him to within one second of losing his podium spot to Froome's Team Sky domestique Mikel Landa.

So contrasting were Froome and Bardet's time trials, Froome went within 20m of catching Bardet despite the latter starting two minutes earlier.

"I was just grateful when I got onto the road and the legs felt good,” Froome said.

"I felt as if I could push today and I wasn't on a bad day, at least, which was the main thing for me.”

Aussie Michael Matthews was roared into the stadium in the green jersey and will look to end his magical Tour with a final-day win on the Champs Elysees.

Orica-Scott's Simon Yates will win the white jersey for best young rider, with his lead over Louis Meintjes maintained when the pair finished with the same time trial time.